When I first picked up this book, I expected a detailed description of caste being inherently tied with Hinduism, which is conversation you read about in newspapers now and then. The book, however, describes society in a way which most savarna Hindus like me would never have encountered- that the Dalitbahujan tradition is not Hinduism, and that Hinduism is nothing but Brahmanism, adopted by the savarna Hindus. I am not qualified to speak of whether Kancha Ilaiah is doing something ‘radical’ here or ‘novel’, or whether it is merely one of the few honest Dalit works that have managed to make their way into the savarna Hindu world of English ‘intellectual’ non-fiction. I will instead say that the book provided me with a counterculture narrative that I have never heard before, and that explains so much of our society that I never thought would or should have been explained by an institution such as caste or religion.
The first two chapters of the book, as well as the sixth chapter, look at the daily lives of people belonging to the Dalitbahujan tradition and Brahmin-Baniya (or ‘Hindu’ tradition) and compare them, from the start to the end. Perhaps one of the most illuminating descriptions for me was the institution of Brahminical patriarchy, which unlike Dalitbahujan patriarchy receives further sanction from Vedic and Brahmin vehicles of control such as purity, through an exploration not just of gender work roles, but the institutions of marriage, divorce, widowhood and remarriage, the role of sexuality and more. Dalitbahujan women, on the other hand, are ‘permitted’ to scream at and chastise their husbands, they have forums of discussion and have a role in their community. The book also explores market structures and community governance, as well as music, art and academia. On academia, for example, there is some time spent on the idea of knowledge and merit, where he connects Brahmin knowledge with religious abstractions, whereas Dalitbahujan knowledge is highly practical- it is the knowledge that comes from doing because the productive role has been relegated to them. Practical knowledge, Ilaiah contends is inherently more scientific and useful, since it involves working hypotheses and experimentation grounded in concrete yield and results. The (distinctly Indian) problem of rote education has often been related to our large populations or questionable allusions to retardation in intellectual development which we suffer, but Ilaiah explains this is the Brahmin form of education (NB Vedic recitation) that we have taken into the mainstream.
It is from this platform of distinct traditions that Ilaiah then goes on to explain phenomena that we often come across in the mainstream today (as they were bubbling to the forefront back when the book was written as well) in the third and fourth chapters. He speaks of the development of the neo-Kshatriya, non-savarna Hindus being lifted from the upper frontiers of the Dalitbahujan by the savarnas in order to continue maintain a hold on society. With the introduction of systems like reservation, as well as the implementation of democracy in independent India, it is no longer possible for the legal power structures to be overtly feudal by themselves. Describing this lifting up as a tradition of ‘co-opting’ by the savarnas, Ilaiah suggests that the neo-Kshatriya has the knowledge and networks required to be able to understand the Dalitbahujan masses. Combined with their own slightly privileged position, and the help they are given being propped up by savarnas, they take up positions of power in the Indian state to continue Brahminism’s hold on these institutions despite democracy. The fifth chapter that discusses Hindu and Dalitbahujan gods and goddesses traces how religion has always been used as a method of co-optation by creating consent (with the other tool being violence- with caste militia prevalent today). He details how the Hindu trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva) and the myths that surround them (Dashavatara, etc.) simultaneously take Dalitbahujans into the ‘Hindu’ fold but remind them of their position within it.
Looking at Dalitbahujan gods and goddesses, however, and the Dalitbahujan community values and systems of governance they practice, Ilaiah hypothesises, implicitly throughout and explicitly in the radical seventh chapter, what a Dalitbahujan polity or economy might look like- less patriarchal, more open to sharing of resources, a dignity for each individual as a member of a whole community rather than dignity for an individual based on the exclusion of every other- ultimately a society that could benefit more people better than it does a few now. With that final call for Dalitisation rather than Hinduisation, Ilaiah suggests that it is a process that was underway with the then Mandal commission’s implementation. But he rightfully recognised reactionary forces from the Hindutva platform. Today, however, the Mandal commission mostly seems like a blip in a continuous entrenchment of Hindutva, rather than a revolution that was met with the Hindu reaction.
Throughout the book, there are many claims, and since it is written without many references and citations, it is quite easy to dismiss these claims as radical. But I think it is vital to approach, at least at first reading, every premise the book lays as true in order to understand the entire counterculture narrative. Its believability should be seen in the context of our own positions (whether we are savarna or, whether our values and knowledge come from savarna media, education or networks) as well as the understanding that our mainstream culture is also premised on many claims that cannot be grounded in reference and citation, and even if it is so grounded, then such reference may often be to the very entrenched savarna academia that already exists. The book also tends to be quite focused on its scope despite the broadness of what I explained above in that its examples and anecdotes are often taken from the South, and more often the Andhra region, but that is of course because that is where Ilaiah is from. While these may be fair criticisms, I think the book was never meant to be an academic text of that nature, but a countercultural narrative. A bit may also be said about how it is not a work that’s very mindful of intersectionality, in that it often fails to note the question of gender and sexual fluidity when it speaks of patriarchy, and perhaps even glosses over the harms of patriarchy in non-Brahmin contexts. I don’t think that Ilaiah’s call for Dalitisation actually asks for Dalitbahujan patriarchy, so this criticism does not take away much from the narrative itself but does remind us to be careful of the nuance involved in any such revolution. It is a book that urges me to learn a lot more from perspectives that I have been either blind to or have been hidden from me. Having said that, in the context of where Dalitbahujan revolution (Dalitisation) and Hindutva stand today, I think the next logical step in reading is understanding what attempts at Dalitisation has looked like in history, to understand what it might look like today.
For the sake of finality, let us look to how Ilaiah ends:
We [Dalitbahujans] must shout ‘We hate Hinduism, we hate Brahmanism, we love our culture and more than anything we love our selves’.
And we (savarna Hindus) must listen.
Glossary:
Savarna, literally ‘good/higher class’, are those people belonging to what is called the Hindu upper caste, andinclude Brahmins (the priests, knowledge-holders, etc), Baniyas (Vaishyas, the merchants) and Kshatriyas (those with political and military power). Ilaiah uses the word Hindu to mean solely savarnas, though that is not the mainstream in India (though it should be noted, the mainstream is savarna).
Dalitbahujan is the term Ilaiah uses to mean those often co-opted in the meaning of Hindu by the mainstream who are not savarna. In modern terminology this might be described as Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs). It includes people described as Shudras and Ati-Shudras who do mostly various kinds of physical labour. It derives from Dalit (literally ‘broken’) commonly used for SCs and Bahujan (literally ‘majority’) which is usually used for non-savarnas.
Hindutva is often described as Hindu nationalism, but it is probably the most hotly debated word in India right now. Ilaiah uses it to describe how Hinduism manifests itself in society, economics and polity. The modern right who hold power (in what can easily be described as an attempt to co-opt and civilise the idea) would describe it as the Indian principle of tolerance- most know this is a lie.
Mihir Rajamane 
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